merrion street

Addressing the launch of the Irish Wind Energy Conference in Dublin this morning Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte focused on the need to deliver on national targets in the renewables sector.  The conference, entitled 'Renewing Ireland', brings together 400 delegates from all sections of the energy and renewable energy sectors.

A particular focus for IWEA Chief Executive Dr Michael Walsh is the need to develop an investment friendly environment, “We need to provide international investors with a clear set of rules that they can analyse to bring efficient investments to Ireland.”  With this in mind the conference will examine issues relating to the areas of investment, policy, planning and global trends.

Minister Rabbitte, noting how political uncertainty in volatile parts of the world can disrupt physical energy flows, stressed the dangers for Ireland given our high dependency on imported oil and gas to meet our energy needs.

In Ireland, we need to ensure that we have an effective and responsive energy policy in place. We need to reduce the amount of energy we use through increasing our energy efficiency measures and we need to develop our indigenous energy sources to switch away from imported fuel sources.

Noting several positive findings in the latest report from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, and ongoing developments in Ireland's working relations with Northern Ireland, Scotland, the UK Government and European Commission, the Minister stressed the need "to focus more on implementing the strategies developed and ensuring that the grid reinforcements are built in time."

The full text of Minister Rabbitte's speech is available here.